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When Airlift Northwest takes off from the region's only Level One trauma center, it is always headed to points outside the city of Seattle. But with the viaduct just hours away from being a part of the Emerald City's history, these helicopters will soon be staying closer to home.

"We can go up and over all of the traffic," said Sean Bacon, the communication supervisor, in Airlift Northwest's dispatch center at Boeing Field. "Pretty much any place in Seattle to Harborview in a helicopter is just a matter of two to three minutes.”

Yet, they don't normally do that, he said.

"There isn't a need for us in the city itself just because the hospitals are so close," Bacon said. "Generally we respond out to more rural areas and bring them into Harborview."

And after 37 years of doing that lifesaving work elsewhere, he says, "this will be the first time that we're actually used in the city."

"One of the things the fire department has been very active in for 12 years is regional aviation," said Deputy Fire Chief Ron Madragon.

Madragon is Seattle Fire's point man for getting the city's first responders around the viaduct closure.

"We identified our primary challenge would be our response capability on surface streets," said Madragon. "Ninety-thousand cars are being pushed onto not only surface streets but (also) arterials that will extend as far north as Northgate, as far east as Bellevue and as far south as Southcenter."

Madragon calls what they are doing is "going outside the box" so they can meet the challenges first responders expect to face.

"Even placing our bicycle medic program in service in the downtown core," he said.